Saturday, June 27, 2015

After a wild and sleepless night,
wherePepita, Javier and Felipe
danced for hours, and where Mary learned the fine art of percussive flamenco
clapping – palm to palm, loud and soft – they headed south on a morning train
from Madrid to Sevilla.

Strolling through the streets of
Sevilla’s ancient neighborhoods, Mary found herself in the old Jewish Quarter,
a beautiful nest of medieval courtyards, homes of Spanish Jews not ready to
convert to Christianity after Ferdinand and Isabella reclaimed Spain for the
Catholics.

Lush orange trees in courtyard gardens
filled with ponds, fountains and leaping golden koi and the quiet stillness
found in the barrio on warm afternoons contrasted sharply with the festival
sounds of Sevilla’s Semana Santa. One wanted to escape all the noisy Christian
penitents, barefoot, chanting, carrying the statues of saints through the
streets – followed by dancing and singing in the bars until the wee hours of
the morning.

Mary had found a spot in the Barrio Judio
that she made a pilgrimage to each day before her night-owl friends awoke.

One morning several days into her visit
there, notebook in hand, ostensibly crafting her piece on Sevilla for Send Off, Mary sat on the edge of a medieval stone fountain, her head
clearing from the incense of the procession she had passed on her way there. As
she listened to the soothing sound of the fountain a wave of dreaminess came
over her. She watched her reflection in the water and felt herself hovering
above it, closer and closer…

At that moment, she noticed a delicate,
fancifully dressed little girl of about 6 years old standing right next to her.

“Senora, please be careful,” the small
child in the white dress said, looking up at her with hazel eyes, soft
white-blond curls floating around her pink-cheeked face.

Mary smiled, Why, she was fine, thank
you…girl and woman smiled at each other. The girl held up a sprig of holly and
moved it over Mary’s head and shoulders.

She noticed the detail on the child’s dress and the clear,
calm light on her face. Why she’s as pretty as a painting, she thought - then
realized she ‘d seen her before. She was the Princess, the Infanta Margarita of
Las Meninas, only missing her royal entourage.

Mary stood up and took a few steps away
from the fountain, away from this vision and the fear rising up in her belly.
The she fell face down onto the lapis blue tiles of the ancient courtyard.

Friday, June 26, 2015

The following morning, after Isabella
left for the hospital, Mary ventured out into the neighborhood, where she saw
old men playing chess at a small table beside the courtyard garden.

She purchased a café con leche and
watched them in the sunshine. They wore black wool berets and took long drags
on their cigarettes as they considered their next moves.

When she realized she’d been staring at
them for about 20 minutes she felt as if she’d wandered onto another planet.
She pulled a map of Madrid’s Metro from her purse and found the route to the
Prado, Madrid’s famed national art museum beside the enormous royal gardens.

Shortly afterward she arrived at the
massive stone building and headed directly downstairs to the permanent exhibit
of Francisco Goya’s works.

The carnal, ugly images of demons,
debauched clergy and souls burning in hell felt oddly comforting. Here were
images of destruction found on the walls of Goya’s private home after his
death, perhaps never intended for the public.

These nightmarish images felt familiar,
direct from the terrors of childhood: Father Time Cronos eating the doll-like
figure of his son, blood flowing from the decapitated torso. A goat drooled
over a circle of women (were they nuns?) who sat around him in the forest, A
scholar flopped unconscious over his desk, bats wheeling over his drugged body.

Feeling light-headed, she left the lower
gallery and went up wide, cool marble stairs to the upper floors where she
found the famousMaja Desnuda, the portrait of (perhaps) Goya’s
benefactor’s naked mistress. Relaxed on a couch, the Maja looks directly out at the world with a
gaze that is far from demure. In the early 19th century, this
painting shocked the world as she flashes just the tiniest bit of dark curls
below her milky white tummy.

At just this moment, Mary heard a
familiar cough behind her.

“Ah, Mary Sparrow,” said Senor Felipe
Huesos, clearing his throat at the end of that familiar cough and smiling a
sparkling smile at her.

There was a large woman in a red dress on
his arm. Despite her nod to the fashions of the city she looked like she would
be just as comfortable pulling up potatoes in a field as strolling through the
Prado on a weekday. She looked like she’d be at ease anywhere.

“Allow me to present to you Dona Pepita
Risuena. She dances with me at Las Meninas and is a guest instructor at Amores de
Dios.”

“Encantada,” said Mary, standing up a bit
straighter in Pepita’s shadow.

“Charmed, as well, Senorita Sparrow,”
replied Pepita, giving her a kiss on both cheeks.

“I see you have been downstairs admiring
Goya’s terrible Caprichos,” Felipe clucked. “Now let’s proceed to Velasquez’
‘Las Meninas’, which is the namesake of our club and an uplifting masterpiece.”

And so they entered the cavernous gallery
that featured the 17th century painter of the Spanish Golden Age,
Diego Velasquez. A self-portrait of sorts, as Velasquez is shown in front of
his easel painting the royal couple, who are reflected in a mirror on the back
wall of the room. The dynamic charge of the 10’ X 10’ painting is the presence
of the small royal princess at the center, flanked by her two young ladies in
waiting, the meninas of the title. Two dwarves and a dog play with her. A man
stands framed in the doorway to the salon, observing the scene.

“How real they are!” said Felipe.

Mary agreed, adding, “It’s like a portal
into another time.”

To which Pepita laughed, saying, “But it
is, mi amor!”

Pepita had taken petite Mary by the arm
and was alternately pinching her cheeks and chatting with her in rapid-fire
Spanish. As Mary tried to keep up with the flow of conversation she found
herself enjoying Pepita’s radiant self-confidence.

“And now, my charming friends,” said
Felipe, “Let us go to the Plaza Mayor and then, later, to Las Meninas!”

Intrigued to see her new friends on the
stage, Mary accepted Felipe’s invitation, boarding a taxi with them to go into
the heart of the city.

Long late-afternoon shadows filled the
enormous 17th century plaza. Ground floor cafes featured outdoor
seating and above them, on all four sides, were floors of apartments with
balconies looking down onto the center of the space.

The white steel folding chairs of the
cafes looked like origami birds clustered in the corners of the plaza. Only a
few tourists, unaware of the civilized Spanish custom of the siesta, sat at the
small white tables.

“Here is where the Inquisition conducted
public executions. You know, burning infidels and witches,” said Felipe, ever
the cheery guide, even when the subject was torture.

“That was a long time ago,” Pepita added, frowning at Felipe.

“Let’s have a café, then show Mary the
pre-show rehearsal at the tablao”

“Fabuloso,” agreed Pepita.

So they sat at the nearest café table
they could find and Mary admired the beautiful facades of the apartments, each
with a view of the executioner’s block.

Later they emerged from the plaza and
headed towards the low, dark tavern of Las Meninas. They walked down a street
with potted red geraniums in window boxes to a door with a golden cube of light
shining through it. A tall, black haired woman threw open the door and swooped
down on Felipe.

“Vaya, Tio,” she growled. “It’s about time you came
back!”

Pepita gave her a nod and sailed past her
holding onto Mary.

“Tranquila, Carla,” said Felipe. “We are here now.”

Carla pouted and flounced as only a 6’
tall flamenco dancer in full costume can do. After a brief tremoring rage at
the door of Las Meninas, she strolled to the bar, where she talked to a man in
dark purple keffiyeh.

As the trio walked past them, they
watched Carla whisper in his ear and heard the man say, “Pero, digo No, mi perra."

Carla reached for his belt and he grabbed
her wrist. She screamed, more in outrage than in pain, and slapped his face
with her free hand.

He laughed, and then walked over to their
table.

“Javier, my friend,” chided Felipe, “more
women troubles?”

“I’m done with her,” he spat. “All I want
is to go back to Cadiz and spend time with my favorite putas.”

And Mary, loving the Latinization of her
name and halfway through her glass of Rioja, looked up at Javier.

“You are right, Pepita,” said Javier.
“Let’s all go back home to Cadiz for a few days, to feel the earth of home
again.”

“You tempt me, Javier, you really do,”
answered Pepita. “But I would rather take my new little friend to Sevilla and
show her the sights, don’t you think?”

Dizzy with Sangria and anticipation, Mary
watched the two performers debate their plans.

“Wait, Wait,” she interjected, “My
magazine, Send Off, has
asked that I cover Semana Santa, which starts next week. Can we all travel
there together?”

“Well, let’s think about that,” said
Javier. He stroked his beard and bear-like sideburns, then disappeared
backstage, a wild creature seeking camoflauge.

As the stage darkened, a solitary man
came on. In his seventies, devoid of any fancy dancer plumage, he took off his
black gypsy porkpie hat and tilted back his head to sing, like a big, gawky
bird. What came out of his mouth was the pulsing chant of Andalucia, the song
of mourning, the song of love.

“This is the ‘cante jondo’, “ commented
Felipe. “The deep song.”

And in the ululating baritone voice that
was almost, but not quite, sobbing, Mary felt some of her own grief slip away;
the grief she had carried with her for thousands of miles and a few decades,
too.

Grief, like silver beads flowing off of a
broken string, pooled one by one around her. This grief, that loss, that loss,
that grief. This apology. The door slammed in your face. That person that
laughed at you. How Life laughed at you. How the list goes on.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

A few months later, Mary left Julio’s
downtown Oakland apartment before dawn, easing her small blue sports car(her only remaining possession since
the fire) into the sparkling colored lights of pre-dawn highway traffic.

The details of the fire and the weeks
after were burned into her memory. In daily life, she focused on taking one
step at a time. She had filled out paperwork, mourned her incinerated cats, and
welcomed the love and company of friends. Her job was an anchor of sorts, too.
That morning, as she entered the elevator, she felt her weight drop down to her
toes as she rose to her office floor.

In her corner of the cube farm she sat at
her desk and called Popcorn, over and over, letting the calm electronic female
voice repeat the advancing time, preparing her for the client calls she knew
she had to make.

She stared at the photo of her missing
cats, who gazed back at her soulfully from beside the agapanthus blooms in what
had been her garden. She glanced down to her company’s glossy travel magazine, Send
Off.

Flipping through the pages she stopped at
a photo of two full glasses of dark red wine on a wooden table, linked by a
curling telephone cord.

“Spain is calling you” it said. She tore
out the page and tucked it into her purse.The vision of wine and romance, in a country she’d longed to
visit, snaked into her heart like the phone cord around the goblets.

Why not? Mary thought. Why not dive into
a new chapter of my life, since I’ve been pushed off the diving board already.
She began to plot her adventure.

Post-fire, packing was easy, and storage
not necessary. She had the name of Julio’s friend Isabella in Madrid, and
reasonable fluency in the language. Her putative task was to take the pulse of
Spanish arts and culture, and submit a piece for Send Off on a limited but reasonable budget.

The night before her flight, Celia, Beth
and Julio took her out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the Mission where
Christmas was celebrated all year round.

“Time to start practicing your Espanol,”
teased Celia as they ordered chimichangas and a pitcher of Sangria.

Mary downed the first glass of the fruity
drink. “No quiero beber demasiado,”
she said, already slurring a little.

Julio looked at her seriously from behind his cracked
horn-rimmed glasses. “Please don’t go on a pub-crawl alone, Mary, not without
the indomitable Isabella by your side.”

Celia draped her thigh over Beth’s,leaned close to Mary and said in a
stage whisper, ”And be careful of the tortilleras,” she giggled.

“Yeah, you know, what ladies do together
in bed,” and she slapped her palms together back and forth forcefully, as if
she was making tortillas.

A burst of laughter erupted from their
booth, causing other guests in the noisy restaurant to glance their way.

Later, Mary cuddled between Celia and
Beth all night, visions of airplane flights and forest fires dancing through
her consciousness.

The
following morning, after tearful goodbyes, Mary boarded her flight to New York
City. She loathed plane travel, and happily was rewarded with an uneventful
flight.

During
her layover at JFK airport, Mary resisted the urge to drink in the bar beside
the boarding gate. She longed to numb herself for the long trip across the
Atlantic Ocean, direct to Madrid.

She
settled into first class and asked for a flute of champagne, which she drank
deeply before nodding off in he luxurious, large seat.

During
the overnight flight she woke several times to the subdued cough of the
dark-haired man in a business suit sitting beside her. Finally she gave up on
sleep, and stared out the window to the east. There she saw the golden sun
emerge from the center of a bank of rolling snow-white cumulous clouds.

“Ah,
el amanecer,”
breathed the man, stretching out his long legs beside her in delight.

After
drinking in the sight of the dawn, Mary dozed off again, pleased to be so far
away from her routine morning commute to the office.

Later,
when the attendant brought them cups of strong coffee and croissants, Mary’s
seat mate turned to her and said, “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Felipe
Huesos, Flamenco instructor, bound to the Amores de Dios school in Madrid.”

And
Mary replied, “ and I am Mary Sparrow, travel writer in search of adventure.”
She put out her hand.

For
an awkward moment, she though Senor Huesos was going to kiss her palm, but
instead he shook it briefly.

“Ah,
these business-like customs,” he sighed, and smiled a sad little smile.

The
airport in Madrid was conveniently located next to a subway line but since a
group of ragamuffin Gypsy children were begging beside the Metro entrance, Mary
opted for a cab instead.

Felipe
carried her small bag to the door of the cab, and gave her his business card.
“Call me,” he said, “You might want to want see a Flamenco tablao.”

He
paused, looked down at her and quickly patted her cheek with his be-ringed
hand. "Adios Carino," he sighed.

Isabella’s
home was located in the Malasana district of Madrid. Malasana, once the home of
patriots and martyrs, now the neighborhood of the ultra-cool. An art student in
college, Mary had planned to travel here from the moment she saw Goya’s
revolutionary painting, The Plaza de Dos de Mayo.

A man stands in front of a firing squad,
arms outstretched. He wears a luminous white shirt and looks at his
executioners, a row of French soldiers, anonymous in their uniforms. He has a
surprised and vulnerable expression on his face. A painting that announced the
modern world, mused Mary, as the taxi zipped through mid-morning city traffic
to Isabella’s apartment lobby.

Green-eyed
Isabella was a pediatric nurse in the big University Hospital nearby, and had
met Julio while working as a nanny in the states. She opened the door wearing
an apron covered in flour and Mary heard two small children screaming behind
her.

“Calla!" she called over her shoulder to
them, and then turned back to Mary. “My neighbors kids,” she said. “Sorry!”

With that she kissed Mary on both cheeks,
leaving a smidgen of flour on each one.

“Welcome,” she said, and led Mary into
the apartment, a spacious room filled with colorful simple furniture,
children’s toys and dozens of potted plants that spilled out onto the balcony.

Mary marveled at the balcony as she
stepped out into morning sunshine. From here she could see the tops of the
early 20th century buildings of downtown Madrid, most notably a
bronze female angel, bare-breasted, with wings spread wide out behind her.

She and Isabella sat on swinging chairs
on the balcony and drank tea.

“Is that the Goddess Victoria?” asked
Mary.

Isabella laughed, then said in the low
gravelly voice of Spanish women, “Yes, you can see her tetas from here, can’t
you? She is watching over us poor souls here in Malasana.”

Later, listening to the receding sounds
of city traffic, children laughing and the splashing water of the plaza
fountain below, Mary felt herself relax. In the quiet of Isabella’s guest room,
she fell sound asleep, enjoying her first siesta in Spain.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

That morning, Mary Sparrow woke to the
rousing bell of a trolley car sliding down Dolores Street in the City. It had
been a surprising night: instead of catching a screening of Blade Runner in the
Castro, Mary and her friends Beth, Celia and Julio had spent the evening
bar-hopping with happy, drunken transvestites.

Mary dragged herself down the hall to the
small railroad apartment bathroom and splashed water on her face, grateful to
not be hung-over. Craving fresh air, she walked out onto the street, leaving
her companions to sleep off the night’s debauchery.

When
she reached the corner on Dolores street she looked east to watch the sunrise.
The splashing white light transformed the sidewalks. Tall sunflowers waved at
her from behind the low picket fence of a nearby garden.

Admonishing herself for yet another lost
weekend, she pledged to head home early, have a swim and spend the rest of the
day in her garden. Mary had lived in the forests of the Oakland hills for five
years, thrilled to have green space on the edge of the metropolis.

In the East Bay Hills people loved to
hide away from the world, where they could garden naked and watch city lights
twinkle below them at night. The ever-present ocean roar of traffic traveled up
from the highways, and the smog made for beautiful sunsets.

When
Mary returned to Beth and Celia’s apartment, Julio pointed out smoke rising up
from the hills to the east.

“Looks like a fire,” he said.

Mary replied, “They’ll take care of it,”
gazing at what looked like a gentle smoke signal reaching up into the sky.

With that, they walked to the Noe Valley
Bar and Grill to enjoy Bloody Marys and big egg breakfasts.

Mid
Huevos Rancheros, an emergency news broadcast interrupted the football game on
the big screen TV above the bar – “Fire in the East Bay Hills. Zero
containment. Mandatory evacuations. Stay tuned.”

From
the phone booth just outside the bar, Mary called her neighbors, who never
watched TV or listened to the radio on Sunday mornings.

The old fashioned phone booth was cool
and dark inside. It felt safe, like a confessional, and offset her rising panic
as she searched her purse for coins.

“What shall we get from your place?” came
the question, and without pausing to think, Mary replied, “My cats, just
please, please save my cats.”

The roads are closed going up to the
burning residential neighborhoods. All Mary can do is wait for news.

Back at the table, her friends become a
blur around her. Petite Celia put Bloody Mary after Bloody Mary down in front
of her, yet Mary remained stone sober.

“It’s going to be OK, you are safe
-that’s all that matters.”Celia
said.

Their words flowed over her from far
away. In her mind she was not in the small dark bar in the City, but standing
alone on top of a tall mountain, powerful winds blowing over her as she
struggled to climb higher and higher to find…what?

When she finally dared to walk outside
into the light, chunks of ash fell from the sky, pieces of people’s lives
skyrocketed up and over miles of land and sea to drift down onto the street.

Celia and her girlfriend Beth took Mary
by the hand and led her back to their home. Cinders fell like rain.

Julio cried openly. “What a blessing that
you are here, and not there,” he said over and over.

Yet all Mary wanted was to be at home.

Back at the apartment, they climbed the
stairwell of the building to the roof for a “better view”.

The hard white concrete of the roof
contrasted with the fading early evening sky. The City dropped away from the
Mission towards the warehouse district, the shipping docks and the Bay. Beyond
the Bay Bridge and up into the hills to the southeast, the fire raged. Mary’s
pressed her hands, cooled by the steel stepladder, against her eyes before she
could face the sight.

An enormous mushroom cloud, purple like a
bruise, rose above the Bay, dwarfing two cities in the foreground. Ribbons of
flickering orange burst from the center of the monster. It pulsed, and sent
swirls of black smoke fanning out across the hills at the horizon.

As she saw what she could barely believe,
shock and the morning’s vodka finally had an anesthetic effect. Silently, she
turned back down into the soothing dark of the hallway. She watched the
television news all night- aerial photographs of bonfires that were once houses
– looking for her home.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Like a mighty ship of the high seas from centuries ago, those of us who live here refer to Big Sur as a "she". The curves of the landscape are her curves: mountains sloping down to the sea become thighs gently opening to incoming tides. Ridge top valleys rest in the afternoon sun like concave tummies, swelling hills are really high round hips, breasts and dimpled bums.

She's fickle, and when she does treat you right, there are no guarantees that her love will last. She demands real-world sacrifices, which you often make for years before clearly seeing your choices. She's touchy, and sometimes harsh, as anyone will say who's felt the sting of local gossip, or paid the price for a wrong move, especially on the road.

You're cold and out of firewood, and she doesn't care. You're lonely and far from friends, she laughs. You struggle in your daily life and party to forget your troubles, while she just goes on dishing out her own dramas, oblivious to yours. You watch yourself grow older in the comfort of her company, but you are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, too.

Devastating fires, treacherous rock slides and torrential storms contrast with gentle days that you wish could last forever, sunsets you'll remember on your deathbed and an existential solitude that heals your soul.

When she reveals herself, it's only in those moments when you are authentically open to her charms. She'll surprise you as you drive around a bend in the road: There she is, veils of mist swirling up to her sturdy knees, those classic cliffs plunging down to the ocean and receding down the coast, so beautiful that you just want to cry.

She'll seduce you with the lightest touch: moments of profound, eloquent stillness in the mornings. She takes your breath away with her baby pink dawns and scarlet sunset skies. Always changing, she teases with her great majesty, plays hard to get with her astonishing beauty. Now you see her, now, as you focus on your own puny life, you don't.

She is Queen of the sounds of silence: serenading frogs, whispering owls, rumbling surf, moaning trees, wing-beats. Most of all, she is a great teacher, probably more teacher than lover, really. When she gives of herself it is when we are ready, when we have done our work, when we have shared our joys, and pursued our passions.

The lunar Goddess must make her home in Big Sur, too. She rises full above the ridge-top, a redwood tree silhouetted against her bone white orb. She spills her bright light down canyons onto the expansive ocean, and we are transformed.